A powerful and sophisticated E-commerce website
PROJECT: CHAPLIN DESIGN
Rocketspark Website Design | Rocketspark E-commerce | Content Creation
Chaplin Design is a lifelong dream and passion project for retired fashion designer Paul Chaplin. After spending numerous years in the industry, he’d always dreamed about having his own collection and a platform to make his clothes available for sale. The interesting thing about this project was that the concept of the eCommerce website came well before any finalised products. When we started, the garments in the designers collection existed as samples and sketches and not in a customer-ready form, which meant that we had to approach the website build in a phased approach.
We started with developing the brand story and written copy around the collections and pieces based on the sketches and sample products, while Paul and his team set to work to get the first 10 of their garments into production.
Around a year later, we reconvened at the fashion shoot which was help at Silo Park in Auckland. I felt honoured to be included in the day, which felt like a high-fashion, high-glamour runway show. It was fascinating to watch the models, hair and makeup artists, designers, photographers and videographer at work and it was humbling to be asked for advice around what would work best in terms of a website format to house the results of a meticulously planned day.
"With no physical store, the eCommerce website has given Chaplin Design the platform it needed..."
The final result is a powerful and stunning website that showcases the best of Rocketspark’s eCommerce capabilities alongside the quality and personality of the designer and his garments.
With no physical store, the eCommerce website has given Chaplin Design the platform it needed to be able to sell and share its beautiful garments and collections. The creation of the website has also gave them the push he needed to make this dream happen.
One of the biggest considerations in eCommerce design is how you are going to structure the products to drive optimum user engagement. Fashion is particularly challenging because there are a number of different ways that you can search, sort and want to view the products.
To achieve the final result, I utilised everything that Rocketspark has to offer from an eCommerce perspective. As well as creating collections, I choose to sort the products in multiple ways such as fabric and garment type, to provide the best user experience. The product is high-end quality-made garments, so the website needed to reflect this with lots of high-quality imagery, video, well-spaced text blocks and we used serif fonts to a quality effect.
Since there was no product imagery available when the project began, I gave the client lots of advice on the types of imagery and videos that would be needed to make it a really effective eCommerce site. On our advice when they did the product shoot they ensured that they also got images of the products from multiple angles which is critical for success when purchasing clothes online, especially as they did not have any stores where consumers could go and try them first.
We also gave the client advice about the end to end process of their clients experience from point of purchase to receiving their goods. One element of this was the shipping and we ended up discussing in depth how the products would be packaged and shipped to the customer so the unboxing experience is also one of high-quality and excitement.
"We were very grateful for the constant guidance and support we received to help us bring not only the website, but our vision to life"
I enjoyed guiding this client through the entire journey and process from start to finish. When the client first came to me they didn’t know where to begin and they were feeling very overwhelmed and confused by the whole thing, especially the chicken and egg scenario caused by needing website imagery but not having products in stock to photograph.
This project was about starting from scratch, both in terms of the business and the website build. The client needed to work through what was needed for the website at the same time they were also getting started on making the business and the garments a reality.
Chaplin Design now has a fully functional website that allows them to share and sell their garments to women in New Zealand and worldwide. It is a platform that will grow with them as they develop their business and add further collections.
Design
+ Brand clarity
+ Brand strategy
+ Digital strategy
+ Marketing strategy
+ Digital systems & toolbox
Cultivate
+ Ecommerce
+ Landing pages
+ Digital marketing
+ Google adwords
+ Social media marketing
